The Leaving (10 page)

A large whiteboard blocked one window, with crazy notes scrawled in black marker.

Lucas saw his own name—the first box of six, in the top left corner—and read,

ONE WEEK BEFORE IT HAPPENED, LUCAS SAID THEY WERE BEING FOLLOWED BY A MAN CARRYING WRAPPING PAPER.

He turned to Ryan. “What is this man-with-wrapping-paper thing all about?”

Ryan came to his side and stared at the whiteboard while he spoke. “We were walking home from my baseball game. And you kept stopping
and turning around and then walking and stopping and turning around, and it was driving me
crazy
because I just wanted to get home and tell Dad about my two hits, and I finally asked you why you were stopping, and I guess I was mean-sounding and you said, ‘No reason.’ But then a few minutes later, you said, ‘It’s just that there’s a man following us.’”

Ryan paused then, took a breath, shook his head.

“I told you that you were being ridiculous. And you said that he was carrying something that looked like wrapping paper, and I said something like, ‘Oooh, the scary man is going to wrap us and take us to a party,’ and that was the end of it . . . until a week later, when you disappeared.

“I told the police about it, and they interviewed some of the guys on the team, and people said they remembered seeing this guy with wrapping paper hanging around the ball field. But of course they never found the guy. There were a few attempts at police sketches, but none of them looked anything alike and they started to think that the guys didn’t really remember seeing the guy, just wanted to be a part of something and be helpful.

“Anyway.” Ryan looked like he’d aged two years telling the story. “If I hadn’t been in such a hurry, maybe
I
would have seen the guy and everything would have been different.”

“Maybe.” Lucas felt his whole body un-tense now that he knew. “Maybe he was just a guy. With wrapping paper.”

“Something
that looks like
wrapping paper is what you said.”

“What
looks like
wrapping paper?” Lucas asked.

“
You’re
the one who saw it.” Ryan shrugged. His phone buzzed and he pulled it out. “I’m supposed to meet Miranda.”

“What’s the situation with you two, anyway?” Lucas lifted a pile of newspaper clippings, started to sift.

“The
situation
?”

“How’d you meet? How long have you been together? Is it serious? Does she live here?”

“What are we, girlfriends now?”

“All right, whatever. Don’t tell me.” Lucas headed toward the bedroom section to see what was there.

“Hold up,” Ryan said. “Sorry. I’m just not much of a, you know, talker. About stuff like that.”

Ryan sat down at the small kitchen table. Lucas came back and sat across from him. Their knees hit. The table was barely visible under piles of magazines and notes.

“She came into work one night about a month ago.”

“You have a job?”

“Part-time valet at the Tiki Tower.”

“That crazy-looking hotel?”

Ryan nodded. “I parked her car. We flirted. She was still at the bar with her friends when I got off, so we hung out and that was pretty much it. Dad was getting sick of her hanging around, I think. But she has roommates she can’t stand, so we never go there.”

Lucas tried to picture his brother wearing a lei, exchanging pleasantries with strangers. It was not an easy scene to imagine. “Shouldn’t you be in college?”

“I am. Also part-time,” Ryan said.

“Her, too?” It dawned on Lucas that he might actually have to go to . . . high school?

“She’s taking a year off. She has this business that’s actually doing okay. She sells these retro/vintage-type iron-on T-shirts on the Internet. Mr. Magoo and Betty Boop and all that stuff.” He gestured to Lucas’s shirt. “The Wonder Twins.”

Lucas looked down. “Never heard of any of them.”

Ryan shrugged and got up. “Anyway, I was thinking about seeing if she wanted to move in and start paying rent. Then hopefully you can start pulling your weight, too.”

“How am I going to do that?” Lucas asked.

“I don’t know. You can flip burgers, can’t you? Mop floors? Whoever had you obviously taught you some basic skills. Or go on TV or something. Make some cash off your sad tale.”

“Why are you so
mad
at me?” Lucas himself lit with anger, could almost hear the
swoosh
of it igniting. “Like one minute you’re not, then the next second, bam. This
rage
of yours—directed
at me
—is just out of line.”

Ryan started crying.

Full-body sob.

That was unexpected.

Lucas waited it out, didn’t know what else to do.

Avery had looked like she was about to cry, too.

Then Ryan said, “I don’t know, man. You’re my brother and I want to believe you and be normal.” Wiped his nose with his bare arm. “But how do I know? How do I know you didn’t kill him? How do I know how to even act around you?”

“I’m as confused as you are.” Lucas moved to a small sofa.

First her—Avery—not trusting him.

Now this.

“What do you want me to say, Ryan? That I’m sorry?” He looked up at his brother. “I’m sorry I came back?”

I’m sorry I don’t remember your brother
.

Ryan shook his head, the tears having gone as quickly as they’d come. “Everyone’s like, ‘What do they remember? Do they remember anything?’ ‘Oooh, it’s so awful they don’t remember anything.’ Want to know what I remember?”

“I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”

“I remember the day Billy Harrington spat in my face on the bus when I was in fourth grade. I remember Dad trying to read Harry
Potter to me, and he was so drunk that pretty much every word sounded like ‘Dumbledore.’ I remember counting to like a thousand or singing ‘Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall’ in my head to survive bus rides with bullies in middle school, and then using those same strategies to deal with Dad and Opus 6 and his having me work with him on it for hours. I remember this guy John Deniro, who was always
so mean
to me and then one day I was a jerk back and then he ended up getting hit by a car and I felt awful about it for years, even though he’d been this awful,
awful
person. I remember being made to eat food I didn’t like, and night after night of going to bed early just to get away from Dad, even though I wasn’t tired, and I’d just lie there wondering when my life was, you know, going to get better. When things were going to change. I remember sirens and blood and dead bodies being dragged out of the school after the shooting. My friend Liam was dead. Everybody crying and screaming. That’s what I remember. I remember
being here
.”

Headspins:

BLOODY BACKPACK GUN CAROUSEL.

Lucas worked to still his mind, then tried to imagine his brother—younger, bored, miserable, picked on, grieving, everything—then half smiled. “Thought you weren’t much of a talker.”

Ryan gave him the finger, shook his head, sort of smiled, too.

“I didn’t know,” Lucas said. “I’m sorry you went through that.”

“You were there, too. There was like an open house for families who were starting kindergarten the next year.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Shocker.” Another half smile.

“Did they at least catch the shooter?” Because justice helped. It had to, right?

“Killed himself. Dad said that it was a good thing because Dad would have done it if he hadn’t.”

Lucas sat quietly with that thought, rolled it around, trying it on for size, liking it.

Justice.

Or something else.

Revenge?

Yes, that.

Lucas said, “I want to kill whoever did this to me,” and the spins started up again.

REINS. SADDLE.

FUN-HOUSE REFLECTIONS WRAPPED AROUND

GOLD POLES
STABBING
HORSES.

Ryan waved a hand dismissively. “You’ll get over it.”

“Why should I?” Lucas put his hands to his head, like he might somehow physically steady it.

“You want to go to jail?” Ryan said. “Right after you got back?”

“It’d be worth it.”

“Well, if and when you find him—or her, or them—you let me know.”

“So you can stop me?” Maybe he needed medication for this thing in his head? “No, thank you.”

Ryan went down the hall to the sleeping area, and there was some slamming of cabinets and then he was back, carrying a wooden box.

He took a key off a hook on the inside of a kitchen cabinet—a pineapple keychain with a smiley face on it. Returning to the table, he opened the box, then spun it around and pushed it toward Lucas.

At the sight of the gun, Lucas stood, wanting to flee, wanting to tell Ryan to close the box, lock it, get rid of it.

But . . .

Then . . .

ONE RIGHT TWO LEFT HISS CLICK

SNAP UP DONE

Everything stilled.

Lucas took the pistol in his right hand—the magazine in his left—and loaded up.

Like he’d done it a thousand times before.

AVERY

Back at home around dinnertime, there were no signs of dinner. Mom was in bed, surrounded by still more tissues. The woman had become a movable flowering tissue tree, dropping fruit wherever she went.

“Have you eaten anything today?” Avery started collecting some of the tissues and put them in the small trash can in the master bath. “Where’s Dad?”

“No appetite. Where else.”

Avery breathed out hard. “I’ll make you something.” She muttered, “Guess I’ll make myself something while I’m at it.”

Her mother rolled onto her side, away from Avery. “Don’t you want to know what’s
wrong
?”

Avery wanted to scream.

“What’s wrong, Mom?” Her arms stiffened at her side.

She held out a piece of paper to Avery. “This was in the mailbox.” Avery took it, mildly impressed that her mother had made it all the way to the pelican by the street.

It was a handwritten note on white paper:

I’M CLOSE. I’M TRYING TO GET AWAY LIKE THE OTHERS. HELP !
—MAX

Avery’s hand started to shake.

Really happening
.

Lowering the note, she said, “Did you call the police?”

Her mom yanked another tissue from a box. “They’re useless.”

Avery went downstairs and thought about calling Lucas, but that didn’t make sense; she didn’t even have his number, if he even had a phone. She hunted around and found the card the detective who’d come by yesterday—

No, not yesterday.

It had been that morning.

Today.

This is what tragedy did; it slowed time to a freaking crawl.

School would never start up again, not at this pace.

She’d never have another birthday, never celebrate another Christmas.

From that morning on—that
phone call
on—life was dog years.

The card was stuck to the fridge with a magnet from a random cousin’s wedding. She dialed Mick Chambers. He picked up.

“It’s Avery Godard.”

She waited.

“How can I help you?”

It sounded like he had no idea who she was.

“I’m Max’s sister.”

“Of course.”

“We got a note from him.” The ink was black ballpoint; the writing all caps.

“A
note
?” Chambers said.

“Yes.” Avery looked out the kitchen window, where a bee was bobbing near the rhododendrons. The setting sun was reflecting off the neighbor’s window, like a ball of fire.

Some shuffling and then, “Okay, what does it say?”

“‘I’m close. I’m trying to get away like the others. Help! Max.’”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.” It wasn’t
her
fault there wasn’t more!

“Who knows about this?” Sounding like an accusation.

“Just me and my mom. Maybe my dad, but I doubt it.”

“Do me a favor,” he said. “Don’t mention it to anyone. Until I check it out. No more little on-camera stunts? And if I catch a whiff of any social media posting nonsense—” Chambers wasn’t the most pleasant-seeming guy.

“It’s a free country,” Avery said. “What are you going to do, exactly? To check it out.”

“I’ll send someone over to pick it up. We’ll get it to the lab. Dust it for prints or other trace evidence.”

Avery said, “And you’ll let me know? You’ll call me?”

“I’ll speak with your parents, yes.”

“It would be better if you just called
me
.”

He was quiet for a long second. “Everything okay at home?”

“Nothing’s okay at home,” she said.

“It’s better if you call me,” he said. “Give me a couple of days.”

“Okay,” she said. But she didn’t want to hang up yet. “Do you think it’s really from him?”

He breathed so loudly that Avery pictured his nostril hairs cowering in fear. “Truth?”

She stared at a flyer gripped by a magnet clip on the refrigerator. Dates and times for the auditions. Next Wednesday. A lifetime away. They had to post a reward before then. “Truth.”

“It’s probably a prank,” he said, sounding almost nice. “A really sick, pathetic prank.”

“What’s
wrong
with people?” Her hands were still shaking when she ended the call.

S
c
a
r
l
et
t

She’d helped Tammy into the passenger seat and had gotten behind the wheel. She turned the key, put the car in Drive.

Had to look around a bit—horn, there.